Your Views: U.S. falling behind in physics education

American industrial jobs and military defense are absolutely dependent upon American primacy in science. In this century of 3D printers and military invisibility-and-mobile-armor suits, the nation that does not compete will perish.

Physics is the fundamental experimental science upon which all others depend. Tragically, inadequate funding for science research in recent decades has resulted in loss of American leadership in physics research. This is seen in the recent verification of the crucial Higgs boson, which imparts mass and weight to all matter, in Switzerland rather than in the U.S. (Note by comparison that when James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz defined and generated the electromagnetic waves now used for radio, radar, TV, diathermy, etc., they were considered a useless curiosity.)

For a strong and secure United States, we must all contact our congressional representatives and urge them to greatly expand America’s basic physics research budget. We also need to vote for all viable candidates who support such fundamental research.

Another symptom of our country’s problem is that the U.S. now ranks about 20th or 30th in education among countries in the world.